The first “Value Co-Creation” Outstanding Corporate Social Responsibility Practices in China award ceremony was recently held at Fudan University in December, 2016. Sealed Air’s Soap for Hope™ program won the Vote of Excellence Award with a significant majority.

The selection of best CSR case studies was sponsored by Fudan University School of Management, the well-known Human Resources management company CIIC Guanaitong and Beijing SynTao Information Co., Ltd. It is the first evaluation program for social value creation case studies that is dominated by academic institutions in China. The award focused on the standards of global sustainable development, business innovation, and social value creation. Experts from well-known domestic universities voted for the top 50 case studies. Only three of the submitted case studies won the honor of the annual Value Co-Creation Excellence Award. Sealed Air’s Soap for Hope program best exemplifies China’s development trend towards creating shared value for society with programs that benefit both corporations and communities. Through the Soap for Hope program hotel properties collect, repurpose, and distribute discarded soap in their local communities along with hygiene education. The other two projects that won the Excellence Awards were “Cow School” from YiLi and “Yi Nong Dai” from CreditEase.

Shen Hong, Vice President and Greater China Managing Director, and Ivy Zhang, Greater China Human Resources Director from Sealed Air China attended the award ceremony. Hong made a speech at the awards ceremony to share Sealed Air’s experience in the region, and also highlighted the importance of sustainability in the Company’s strategy. Once it was set up in China, the Soap for Hope program developed rapidly because it was a win-win program that created mutual benefits for CSR partners by improving people’s lives and creating significant shared value.

Soap for Hope partners include hotel properties, NGO’s and their beneficiaries, and employees of both Sealed Air and the participating hotel properties. Hotel participants strongly identify with the program’s ability to create value for both the hotel by reducing their waste and increasing their ability to give back to the local community in which they operate. NGO’s and their beneficiaries receive numerous opportunities from Soap for Hope, one example including giving locally disabled community residents the chance to improve their job skills and integrate into society more fully. Employees from Sealed Air connect the customers, NGOs, beneficiaries and employees together to create a strong partnership, allowing the program to continue its growth across regions and hotel properties.

Many judges for the award commented on the strength of the program and the impact it has on local communities. “The amount of used soap from many hotels one year is very impressive. Not only can the project reduce waste to protect the environment, but it also provides employment to the disabled. The social value created is significant,” said one award judge. Through this process, Sealed Air, NGOs and disabled people have established synergies and achieved remarkable results. As a global public benefit project, Sealed Air is able to tailor its approach to local conditions and demonstrate its ability to innovate in the process.

Soap for Hope is committed to improving health, supporting livelihoods and reducing waste. Sealed Air professional technology, staff, customers, and social welfare groups benefit from the program. Disabled people are trained to recycle soaps provided by hotels. They use simple tools to sterilize and reprocess used soaps, which are then distributed to needy groups and children in remote areas.

The global program was founded in 2013. Soap for Hope began in China in 2014, and since then has recycled 10 tons of used soap and made 40,000 pieces of recycled soap for distribution back into local communities. The Soap for Hope program is just one way Sealed Air is acting out its corporate vision of “creating a better way for life”, by implementing a sustainable development strategy into the enterprise and societal activities to create shared value.

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Sealed Air Corporation has launched the initiative ‘Soap for Hope™’, in association with Doctors for You, an NGO in Mumbai. Sealed Air aims to recycle used hotel soaps into fresh soap for distribution to local communities. In Mumbai, the joint workshop held by Sealed Air and Doctors For You provided a step-by-step demonstration of the soap-recycling process.

The soap that will be distributed to slum dwellers and lower middle class families aims to promote hand-washing as an effective and inexpensive way to prevent diarrheal and respiratory diseases in developing countries.

Sealed Air has launched and implemented this program in 62 cities and 27 countries with 249 partner hotels. Donors have come forward in India with soap and participation for skill training efforts.

Typically, a 400-room hotel generates 3.5 metric tonnes of solid soap waste per annum. Hence, this initiaitive can provide soaps to 2,000 people annually and save 1.5 million lives through proper hand hygiene.

“Soap for Hope is a real example of creating shared value for all parties involved – our customers, the NGOs, the local communities and Sealed Air employees. Every party plays a critical role and has embraced the Soap for Hope program enthusiastically,” said Himanshu Jain, MD and VP, Indian Subcontinent and South East Asia.

“Having received the Asian CSR award for this initiative, we intend to reach out to more communities and create an impactful living by touching 25,000 lives by end of this year and create this as a movement rather than a one – off initiative”, he further added.

Dr Rajat Jain, Vice President, Doctors For You said, “We want awareness for hygiene to go up. This integrated approach will lead to a livelihood for local communities. We have started this initiative in areas like Govandi, Mankhund, Tatanagar and Deonar to start with in Mumbai. We plan to extend this initiative to other slum areas and take it to cities like Jaipur, Chennai, Delhi, Hyderabad and various others. The aim of this initiative is not only to distribute soaps, but also provide employment opportunities to men and women both at the village level.”

“The immunization rate has gone up considerably with the soap distribution and it can reduce diarrhea and various other diseases by 70%. It is quite alarming to know that urban slums are more prone to diseases than rural areas,” Dr Naresh Gill, Head, Mumbai Operations elaborated during the event.

To date, in 27 countries in South East Asia and Africa, 752 tons of used soap has been recycled into 6.2 million bars of soap. Every year, about 400,000 people in local communities benefit from this program.

Once the used soaps are collected from hotels, Sealed Air transports it to the local community and teaches the local people to recycle soap using an innovative cold-press method which requires no electricity. The entire process takes less than 10 minutes to recycle into fresh bars of soap.

The DuPont Packaging Awards program is an international, independently-judged competition that honors innovations in packaging design, materials, technology, and processes across the entire packaging value chain. Inaugurated in 1986, the DuPont Packaging Awards program is recognized globally as the leading packaging awards program and received more than 170 entries and selected 22 packages to receive recognition in this year’s competition. Sealed Air was one of only nine entries to receive a Silver Award.

Manufactured with fewer materials than past designs and compliant with national and international recycling requirements, the packaging is manufactured using a standard corrugated fiberboard frame that is easily recyclable in the corrugated waste stream. The Korrvu Lok™ solution eliminates the need for messy or excessive void filling materials, keeping the item inside locked in place and cleanly presented. The design is easy to open, easy to reuse and recycle, and enables effortless reverse logistics if the customer needs to make a return. The elegant visual design also enhances the brand of the items inside as well as the consumer experience.

Business

Sealed Air Corporation creates a world that feels, tastes and works better. In 2015, the Company generated revenue of approximately $7.0 billion by helping our customers achieve their sustainability goals in the face of today’s biggest social and environmental challenges. Our portfolio of widely recognized brands, including Cryovac® brand food packaging solutions, Bubble Wrap® brand cushioning and Diversey® cleaning and hygiene solutions, enables a safer and less wasteful food supply chain, protects valuable goods shipped around the world, and improves health through clean environments. Sealed Air has approximately 23,000 employees who serve customers in 169 countries. To learn more, visit www.sealedair.com.

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